with him.

I had always detested von Felsen, and had only tolerated him in my newspaper days because, as the son of a powerful Minister, Count von Felsen, he could sometimes be tapped for valuable information. The fact that this news came from him made it seem even worse than it was.

"You can see for yourself," he added.  "There they are, together. All Berlin knows about it. Look, everybody is watching them"; and his close-set cunning eyes were fixed on my face as if he knew how his words would affect me, and was pleased.

"They are worth looking at, anyhow," I answered, with a shrug of indifference. They were. In my eyes Althea was the most beautiful girl in the room. The type of a lovely brunette, with perfectly moulded features, large lustrous eyes instinct with tenderness and sympathy, and a figure of consummate grace. But then I looked at her with the eyes of a lover. The Prince was also strikingly handsome. Tall, with a soldierly bearing, and as fair as Althea was dark, his face was marred only by the weakness of the mouth.

"We only want the Kaiser himself and the Princess von Altenvelt to complete the picture, eh?" sneered von Felsen with a chuckle of malice.  "How his High-and-Mightiness would enjoy the sight! As much as you do, Bastable."

"Yourself, you should say, rather, judging by your looks," I retorted.  "It is nothing to me."

"You wouldn't have a chance, if it were," he snapped.

I was not going to let him see how hard I was hit by the news, and as the band struck up then I turned away in search of my partner. This was Chalice Mennerheim; really Althea's niece, although the relationship appeared a little absurd as there was only a year or so between them. I meant to find out from her whether there was any foundation for von Felsen's insinuation.

Chalice had a remarkable voice, and Althea had brought her to Berlin to be trained by Herr Grumpel, the great professor, whose influence at Court was as powerful as his skill in voice culture was great.

After a couple of turns round the room I led her into one of the conservatories. She was very vain and intensely selfish, and would have been really pretty, had it not been for a certain hard, calculating expression in her light blue eyes. They always suggested to me the eyes of an unskilfully painted picture.

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